Fruit Bats

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Before you go blaming Eric Johnson’s Fruit Bats for the lack of a new Shins record, we advise you take a listen to The Ruminant Band. This follow-up to 2005’s Spelled in Bones is an upbeat, countrified take on Johnson’s long-established folk shtick, and the result is nothing short of masterful. Pinches of the band’s familiar, slowed-down orchestration (“Beautiful Morning Light,” “Singing Joy to the World”) are strewn throughout Ruminant, but it's no longer the Bats’ only mode. In its place we get Southern rock jams and parlor-style piano parts that beg for feet tapping. On tracks like “Tegucigalpa” and “Feather Bed,” Johnson pays some serious vocal props to blues rocker Jack White and pop icon Elton John, respectively, making for a record that’s vocally driven, poignantly melodic, and delightfully listenable. In other words, the perfect distraction ’til Mr. Mercer busts out album number five.

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